On June 22 the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) admitted Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, and Laos as observers of its meetings. The new status of these countries was a first step toward their full membership in the seven-member (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) regional organization. The invitation to Myanmar, a military regime with a poor human rights record, assumed that a closer association of Myanmar with ASEAN would avoid isolating the country and help keep it from falling into the Chinese sphere of influence. ASEAN officials contended that their policy of "constructive engagement" with Myanmar would lead to peaceful reconciliation between the Myanmar military government and the National League for Democracy (NLD), led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who insisted that the ASEAN policy had "failed miserably." Opposition to the policy came also from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States, and Western human rights advocates, who feared that it would strengthen the influence of the armed forces in Myanmar and who supported the right of the NLD to participate in Myanmar’s political life. ASEAN members firmly rejected a Western proposal on July 24 to establish a UN "contact group" that would try to hasten political reform in Myanmar, condemning the proposal as unwarranted intervention into the affairs of a sovereign state. In November ASEAN delayed acting on Myanmar’s application for membership because of the government’s failure to moderate its oppressive domestic policies.

An ASEAN Internet forum in Singapore agreed on September 4 to block off sites carrying material deemed counter to Asian values. Their chief concern was "smut" in cyberspace and information that might increase religious and racial tensions in the member countries.

The ASEAN Regional Forum (ASEAN members and 14 other nations with security interests in the Asia-Pacific region) met in Jakarta, Indon., on July 23 to discuss creating a Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. Within the zone weapons would be barred not only on land but on the continental shelves and exclusive economic zones, reaching out 200 nautical miles into the sea. Both China and the U.S. objected to extending the zone seaward on the grounds that it would restrict freedom of movement on the high seas and would violate other principles set out in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. ASEAN, on the other hand, was eager to bar China from deploying nuclear weapons in and around disputed reefs and the Paracel and Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. To this end the ASEAN countries made it clear on July 24 that they opposed China’s action in May aimed at extending its jurisdiction in the sea.

The heads of state of the governments in the European Union and 10 Asian countries (Brunei, China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam) met in early March in Bangkok for the first-ever Euro-Asian summit, which sought to stimulate commercial relations and policies between all those nations that attended. The conferees pledged themselves to work together to reform the UN, to oppose nuclear proliferation, to strengthen controls over conventional arms, to fight against drugs, and to develop economic relations (especially investment) between all of those in attendance. Leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group, including U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton, met in Manila and on November 25 endorsed efforts to "substantially eliminate" tariffs on computers and other information technologies by the year 2000.

The Andean Group renamed itself the Andean Community when the heads of states of the member nations (Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela) met for their eighth presidential summit in March in Trujillo, Peru. The change was embodied in a modified protocol to the 1969 Cartagena Agreement that established the original Andean group. The similarity of the community’s name to the European Union (formerly the European Communities) was meant to imply the Andean powers’ intent to follow a similar path to integration. In addition, the members of the community agreed to create a High-Level Operation Group to take charge of the antidrug war in the five countries.

At a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Panama on June 4, member nations criticized the United States for having extended its embargo against Cuba (in the Helms-Burton law) as a probable violation of international law. The U.S. cast the sole dissenting vote in what observers regarded as a stunning defeat for U.S. policy. Richard Swift